This invention relates to automotive air conditioning and refrigeration systems, and is more particularly concerned with an electrically powered refrigeration system for chilling the driver's seat of a motor vehicle, such a race car.
At the present time, particularly in competitive motor sports, driver comfort has become an issue because the driver's compartment of the race vehicle becomes unbearably warm, with temperatures often well over 100° F. Some attempts have been made to provide air flow to the driver's helmet or into the driver's clothing to alleviate this. However, the results have not been satisfactory. A small DC-powered cooler has been proposed for providing cool air to the driver's helmet, but that does not provide bodily comfort for the driver's torso.
In automobile racing, organizational rules limit the engine size and displacement. Any air conditioning system that is belt-driven from the engine, i.e., where the engine would directly power the compressor and condenser fan, would create an unacceptable load on the engine which would compromise race performance during an event. Therefore, any standard, engine-powered air conditioning system would not be an acceptable solution.
A climate-controlled car seat has been proposed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,254,179 (Kortüm et al.), in which warm or cold water is flowed into coils that are embedded in the seat. The cooling or heating fluid is taken from the car's heating system or air conditioning system. Also, automotive air conditioning systems have been proposed in which the evaporator coil is located within the back of a car seat, for the purpose of distributing chilled air throughout the passenger compartment, and one example of this is described in U.S. Pat. No. 2,430,335 (Hart). None of these earlier proposals is capable of chilling the driver's seat itself to a low temperature (such as 20° F.) nor does any of them employ a compressor and fan that can operate without placing a load on the engine during the race.